


The Damned

by daymaedoo



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, allura kinda sucks, helpful team, kind of rough, maybe gore if you dont do blood, slave AU, the kids are sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 14:51:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14114724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daymaedoo/pseuds/daymaedoo
Summary: Lance passed by his mirror, expertly managing to avoid his reflection- managing to evade the lack of color on his cheeks. That of which damned him to a life of servitude- sentanced him to the life of a slave.





	The Damned

"Lance!" He rolled his eyes as he heard his name echo through the empty halls of the castle. He silently cursed King Alfor for trapping him in that cryo-pod all those years ago. He signed as he stood, his back aching from Allura's last reprimand (of course because his response time was too slow for her).

Lance passed by his mirror, expertly managing to avoid his reflection- managing to evade the lack of color on his cheeks. That of which damned him to a life of servitude- sentanced him to the life of a slave. His pointed ears rose high above his hair, so elegant and beautiful- truely one of his best aspects. Something that should have set him apart. But it was nothing compared to the weight of not having the pop of color on his cheek bones, assigning him to a class.

As much as the princess preached her speil of peace and prosperity, she sure knew how to treat and keep up a slave. She was a harsh mistress who knew how to keep her slaves in line. Lance rushed to her quarters and fell to his knees, back straight, head down, and hands crossed behind his back- neck bared in submission. 

"Yes, mistress?" He spoke softly in response. She huffed and he heard her cross her arms. 

"Lance, my room has not been cleaned properly in three days." He heard her light foot steps as she walked around the paladin, padding slowly and deliberately. He tensed under her glare. "Why is that?"

He winced at the ground, unsure before he felt the blunt white pain of a flog against his thin shirt. He grit his teeth. "You sent Keith and I on the diplomatic meeting with the executives of the planet Ziamnt." He explained.

"And I told you to return every night." He felt the burn in his back again. He hissed, but made no move to reply. She lashed out once more and he clenched his fists, nails biting into his soft skin.

"I'm sorry, mistress." He whispered.

"Remove your shirt." His heart stopped. His trembling hands found the hem of his shirt as he shakily pulled the fabric over his head, discarding uncerimoniously it in a heap beside him. He heard her exchange the flog for a different method of punishment. She jerked him up by his wrists before securing him to the pole of her bedframe. And he waited- suspened in an atmosphere of anxiety and fear- until it came. He bit his cheek as the thin whip cut into his back with a deafening crack. She struck him again, crossing over the last one. His knees buckled and his arms stretched at their sockets, keeping him upright.

White hot cuts opened across his back as Allura brought the whip upon him again and again. His stone-faced princess mercilessly whipped him until he was nothing but a bloody mess.

Lance, though, kept his mouth shut. Nothing got past his pressed lips as she tore into his back. Tears streamed down his face as she reopened old cuts and dug deeper into new ones, but not one sound escaped Lance, just as he was trained by King Alfor. 

When she finally released him after his thirty lashes, she commanded him to clean his blood off of her floors, then return to the training deck once he was done. Once she recieved an appropriate response, she flitted out of the room, light padding footsteps and all. 

Lance remained on his hands and knees, fists gripping against his skin, opening crescent shaped slices where his nails dug. Before long, he moved, grabbing an empty pail and a large sponge and filled it with solution. He returned to the stone flooring of Allura's quarters and began to scrub.

...

Lance met with the group about forty five minutes later after thoroughly dressing his wounds. He wore his most charming smile and trained twice as hard as the rest of the team. Shiro even praised him on his improvement.

Lance's heart soared at the encouragement- in his eighteen years of conscious life, he'd never been praised like he had as a paladin. It was always seen as taboo to praise your slave. it made the master look soft- too forgiving. It seemed out of the human culture to neglect someone for their color, or lack thereof.

Allura's eyes tightened as she watched the paladins interact with Lance. She was, bluntly put, mortified by how they treated him as if he was their equal. So, like any good Altaen leader, she made sure to remind her slave of how he was to behave. After all, she would not want Lance to get any ideas of a class change.

After dinner, Allura watched Lance clean the dishes, Coran stood beside her, his cold glare burned through Lance's back. The slave tensed under his owners' sctutiny. He rushed to finish, quickly scrubbing and dunking the plates.

"Oh, Coran. I really hope that water is hot. You know hot water really kills the germs." Allura whined. Coran hummed before speaking up. 

"You heard her." He started in the gruff voice that he saved for Lance alone. "Rewash all of those dishes." Lance sniffed as he felt Coran's eyes narrow. "And make sure that water's boiling."

Lance cringed as he turned the heated spout on, pouring out boiling water. He felt his skin stretch and set, growing brittle under the burning water. He grit his teeth as he tried to quickly rescrub the plates. Then he heard the scratching of one of the metal dining chairs against the floor and felt it connect with his diced back.

A garbled cry ripped up Lance's throat as he fell to his knees, hands still in the burning water. He heard Allura tut softly behind him.

"It seems as if Lance has forgotten his training." She said, reverently. Lance's eyes widended where they were trained on the floor.

God, oh god no. He felt the panic rise in his stomach but was unable to speak. 

"Coran, retrieve the mask, will you?" Coran left at the princess' request and returned moments later with the contraption in his hands. Lance shut his eyes tightly as it was placed over his yeah and secured into place. Steel rods covered his face, muzzling his mouth. Three beams extended from the collar, preventing him from laying comfortably. 

Allura finally attatched the chain link leash to the collar and roughly yanked it, pulling Lance to his hands and knees. 

"Let us go, Lance." She grit out, dragging the boy harshly as he scrambled to keep up with the princess. As Allura ushered Lance out of the kitchen, Hunk, Keith and Pidge walked through the door, laughter dying out as soon as their eyes landed on their fellow paladin.

"Oh my god, Lance?" Pidge reacted first, falling to their knees beside the scared boy.

"What the fuck are you doing!?" Keith growled, stepping toward the princess. Coran slid in front of her, protectively.

"We're only retraining this one." She turned an icy glare to the quivering child. "The cryo-sleep obviously has affected his performance."

Hunk had ran to retrieve Shiro as none of the kids knew how to handle the scene before them. Pidge went to soothingly rub Lance's back but was met with an anguished cry when their hand met his skin. Keith turned his attention to the hurt boy.

"Keith, I," Pidge stuttered, rendered speechless as the red paladin pulled out his knife and sliced through the thin fabric of Lance's shirt.

Many of the long cuts has reopened, slowly oozing down his back. His skin was raw and puckered, the red cuts angry against his dark skin.

Shiro and Hunk returned to the stunned paladins and a crying Lance. His gaze hardened as he looked to Allura and Coran.

"This shit stops now." He ground out. "You can't treat him like this."

"How to you reprimand your slaves on your Earth?" Allura asked, her head falling to the side in genuine curiosity.

"We abolished that shit years ago, bitch." Pidge piped up from where they crouched beside Lance.

Hunk began to make quick work of taking off the leash and taking off the headgear. Shiro told Keith to start a healing pod when Coran rustled.

"No, no my boy. Lance cannot use that. The healing process shows the learning process. He will never make the same mistakes, you see! If we put him in a pod every time that we punish him, how will he ever learn?" He quickly explained.

Shiro shook his head slowly, wide eyes locked on Coran. "Look, either you both treat Lance as an equal, or you will have to find five new paladins because we all will walk out and take Lance with us." Allura sputtered, her excuses falling silent from her lips as she looked at all of her paladins.

Then, she dropped the leash that was still firmly clasped in her fist, and made her way to her quarters.

...

The next morning, Lance was out of the pod. His back would be scarred for years, but he finally was comfortable. He sat at the table with his fellow paladins for the first time and spoke animatedly with them over their plates of goo. 

They were in the middle of a conversation when Allura came through the door and took her seat at the head of the table.

She sighed quietly before looking up at the palidins. 

"Can someone pass me a bowl?" Lance immediately averted his eyes and reached for a plate, presenting it before her.

"Yes, mistress." He said obediently, but she didn't respond. A long moment passed before he felt fingers under his chin. He tensed up, his shoulder blades going rigid.

"Lance, look at me," She said softly. He tilted his head up, eyes falling on her skirt. "Look me in the eyes, Lance." She carefully murmered.

He finally met her gaze and founf her eyes smouldering, passing between frustration and planned, genteel gentleness. 

"I will not be your mistress anymore," She started slowly. "I am your leader and you are my blue paladin. We must work together to keep the universe out of Zarkon's hands." She let go of his chin and Lance stood before her in awe.

"If I am to liberate millions from Zarkon's reign," she began slowly. "I must start in my own castle." She crossed her arms around her small form.

"I, I am trying." She started, tiredly. "But I am learning." She gained her voice back, and turned to address her paladins with a grin.

"We will win this war."

**Author's Note:**

> ahhhh this wasnt that great i dont think. my thought process is that allura would still have her ways set about her from 10000 years ago. its insane to expect her and coran to be politically correct and activists as soon as they came out of the cryopods and of course there would be some hard things that they need to let go. and i thought that showing her being his equal is this would be suuuuper unrealistic so thats why i left it with the whole i'm trying bit.
> 
> im black and slavery, at least for me, is a tender, uncomfortable topic but i thought hey its still black history month, why not twist our dark parts of history with altea? i hope i didn't come off as rude or disrespectful because that is not what i was going for. i researched the most harsh punishments that slaves had to endure for the tasks at hand because allura's royalty. she would probs treat her slaves like shit in the time that she was coming from so yeah
> 
> so theres that! hope you enjoyed!  
> check out my tumblr!  
> langstexmachina.tumblr.com
> 
> \- day


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